Well, it’s currently 1:13am in the morning and in a few short hours I will be on my flight to Thailand! Words can’t even describe how I felt/feel/will feel. Sorry for the dramatics, but I think this year abroad is bound be a life-changer for me.

However this brings me to a topic that I am not too happy about… the future status of this blog. No worries, this blog will still be up for those who need some recipe ideas. I don’t plan to ever take it down. It’s cringe-worthy, yet kinda cool to go back and read my posts from 5 years ago. (Yes, 5!) In an odd way, this blog has been a record of my college years. For those of you who have followed this blog, a big shout out and thank you to you!

Unfortunately, I’ll be unable to continue this blog for long in Thailand as I will not have a kitchen in my new home 😦 So, for the next few weeks, I’ll post recipes I’ve been meaning to. After that, it’s only if I have the opportunity to cook.

If you would like to know about my adventures in Thailand, feel free to follow my new blog, Teach. Eat. Travel. Repeat. I would love to share my journey with you!

For my last post, I wanted to write about this awesome new flour I’ve discovered- banana flour! It’s grain-free, paleo, and no,it does not make your food taste banana-y.

Well, for this recipe it does because I used the flour is used to make banana chocolatemuffins. So good. I can’t even…

Eat one for me while I’m away! 😉

Banana Flour Chocolate Banana Muffins

Ingredients:

1/2 cup banana flour

3 tbsp cacao powder

2 tbsp honey

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup mashed banana

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 pinch stevia extract powder

1 egg

Optional- Chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Mix all ingredients together in a food processor. Pour batter into a greased muffin tin. Bake for 25 minutes. Let cool before eating.

I’ve been revisiting some of my old posts recently to see if I can make any minor improvements. This is a rather fun job for me as it involves a lot of taste testing! Plus, it’s a bit of a trip down memory lane (Hello, May 2012!). Good lord, how embarrassing some of my posts are…

While scrolling along, I came across my Carrot Bar recipe, which immediately made me start thinking of possible variations. The result? Banana bars!

Banana Bars

Ingredients:

1 cup mashed banana (about 3 bananas)

3/4 cup plain yogurt

1/3 cup water

1/4 cup honey

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 tbsp flaxseed

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup coconut flour

Optional: 1/4 cup coconut flakes

Optional: 1/4 cup chocolate chips

Optional: 1/4 cup chopped almonds

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 13×9 baking dish.

Combine all ingredients (except chocolate chips and almonds) in a food processor and blend until a thick batter is formed. Stir in chocolate chips and almonds, if using. Spread batter in the baking dish and bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes before cutting and eating.

And as a Thanksgiving special, I’ve included a 2 in 1 recipe! Pie filling and a pie crust. I have long stopped using store-bought pie crust. This recipe is a lot healthier than what you can find in a store. Plus it takes only 3 seconds to make!

Butternut Squash Banana Pie (Paleo)

Pie Crust Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup of raw nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts…whatever you fancy!)

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1.5 tbsp water

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place nuts and and coconut in food processor and pulse until fine. Add in rest of ingredients. Pulse, scraping sides if needed. Dump pie crust into a 9-in pie pan and press down and up against the sides. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Meanwhile…

Pie Filling:

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked and pureed butternut squash

1/4 cup nut butter of choice

3 ripe bananas

2 tbsp coconut oil, melted

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp salt

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in food process and blend until smooth. Spread in a prepared pie crust and freeze for 3-4 hours. If freezing for a longer period of time, allow to thaw before eating.

This week, I came to the acceptance that I cannot bake for the life of me when using a box mix. I’ve actually known this for a while now- past experiences in making brownies while babysitting have never been successful. However, I’ve always been able to blame someone else’s oven for gooey, undercooked brownies. Until this week.

Thinking I could score some easy points for a club I’m in, I signed up for the club’s coming bake sale on campus and was assigned brownies. Except… I ran out of time and ingredients to make them homemade. Oops.

So, down to the 11th hour, I grabbed a gluten-free brownie box mix that I figured would do.

Yes, I know. Shame on me for using a box mix for a bake sale. Not really all that homemade when all you do is mix the powder with 2 ingredients. Not to mention all the artificial and sugary ingredients… but like I said, time crunch. Hey- at least I didn’t try playing off store-bought brownies as my own?

But, some higher-up power also thought I was taking the easy way out. So what do I get? Gooey brownies that wouldn’t hold form and were burnt at the bottom.

Hmmm, thought me. Must have been the box brand. But alas, no. Because box 2 turned out the same way, with the sides rock hard.

Grumbling that I should have just gone out and splurged on ingredients, I tried box 3. And a miracle happened. Passable brownies… an embarrassingly long time later.

Lesson learned? I’m sticking to baking from scratch from now on. For me, it’s actually less time consuming. Plus, homemade is 1000x better than box mixes.

Which is why I was happy to make my (from scratch) coconut banana bread today 🙂

Coconut Banana Bread (Paleo)

Ingredients:

2 ripe bananas

2 eggs

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 tbsp coconut oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup tapioca flour/starch

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/3 cup shredded coconut

3 tbsp coconut sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line a bread pan with parchment paper.

Combine bananas, eggs, applesauce, oil, and vanilla in a food processor and blend all together.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, shredded coconut, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda and power, and salt.

Add dry ingredients to the wet and stir/blend together until combined.

Transfer bread batter to the bread pan and place in the oven for 45 minutes.

So most people know this trick by now, but I figured with summer and the heat, it was worth posting! Honestly, I’d take this stuff over regular ice cream any day. And it’s even healthy enough (depending on your toppings) for breakfast!

Little tip though: let the bananas defrost for about 10 minutes before blending- I did the mistake of blending right away and the frozen bananas jammed and broke my blender 😦

Which is why I got a food processor to begin with… just making the best of a bad situation!

(The blender is still on my counter by the way. Since nobody else makes anything in my house, they haven’t discovered it’s broken. I broke it 3 years ago now… Shhhhh!)

Take banana slices out of the freezer and let defrost for 10 minutes. Place in a food processor, pour over with coffee/milk, and blend until mostly creamy (it’s okay if there’s still some frozen banana chucks). Add in the rest of ingredients and blend until smooth and ingredients seem evenly distributed. Scoop into a bowl with an ice cream scooper for an authentic ice cream look. Add on toppings and dig in!